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Wii Suck @ Video Games - Episode 18 - Scooby-Doo! And The Spooky Swamp

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Feb 22, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Poor Man's Pinball reviews Wii Scooby-Doo game; mentions Spooky Pinball's Scooby machine.

Summary

An episode of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast (branded as 'Wii Suck @ Video Games') where hosts Mal and Chris Craft review Scooby-Doo and the Spooky Mansion, a Wii game from 2010. The show features their recent game acquisition haul, gameplay impressions, and ratings. A brief mention of Spooky Pinball's Scooby-Doo pinball machine occurs during discussion of the IP.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball, out of Benton, Wisconsin, makes a Scooby-Doo pinball machine

    high confidence · Mal mentions this directly during discussion of Scooby-Doo IP, and notes they played it 'just the other week'

  • Matthew Lillard voices Shaggy in modern Scooby-Doo iterations and does voice work for pinball machines

    high confidence · Chris Craft states this and praises Lillard's professionalism and attention to detail in voice work for games and pinball

  • Scooby-Doo and the Spooky Mansion was released on September 14th, 2010

    high confidence · Hosts establish this as the date they're reviewing the game 'as it was'

  • The game was developed by Torres and published by Warner Brothers

    high confidence · Read directly from game box during review segment

  • Metacritic score for Scooby-Doo and the Spooky Mansion is 7.6

    high confidence · Hosts reference Metacritic during review discussion

Notable Quotes

  • “Interestingly enough, you know, there's also the Scooby-Doo pinball machine from Spooky Pinball out of Benton, Wisconsin, which is, we played that just the other week.”

    Mal @ ~16:30 — Direct mention of Spooky Pinball's Scooby-Doo machine; demonstrates crossover between video game and pinball collecting communities

  • “Matthew Lillard, the guy who does them now, I guess he's really great to work with. Like a fun guy. Like when he comes in to do call-outs for games or for like the pinball stuff, he's just like a great guy.”

    Chris Craft @ ~28:45 — Indicates Lillard's involvement in pinball voice work and speaks to his professionalism in the industry

  • “I think a lot of games just didn't have the processing power back then to like do these expansive gigantic worlds. But this one felt really like okay we're going here and then somebody says okay do this and then you're just going there.”

    Mal @ ~22:10 — Design critique of linear game structure, contextualizing 2010-era technical constraints

  • “This is one of my favorite games that we played so far. So there you have it.”

    Mal @ ~36:50 — Summary opinion elevating Scooby-Doo game in their catalog of reviewed titles

  • “I didn't realize how much of a hippie stoner Shaggy is and I know that whole deal but I like whole generations of kids are just growing up thinking Jon Hey man.”

    Chris Craft @ ~27:30 — Observation about character portrayal and generational impact of Shaggy's voice acting

Entities

Scooby-Doo and the Spooky MansiongameSpooky PinballcompanyMatthew LillardpersonMalpersonChris CraftpersonTorrescompanyWarner BrotherscompanyPoor Man's Pinball PodcastorganizationPress StartcompanyScooby-Doo (IP)product

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Poor Man's Pinball Podcast episode discussing Wii game collecting and reviews; demonstrates active content creation in retro gaming space adjacent to pinball community

    high · Full episode transcript of 'Wii Suck @ Video Games' series with structured review format and audience engagement

  • ?

    community_signal: Crossover awareness between video game collecting and pinball communities; hosts familiar with both Wii games and pinball machines

    high · Mal mentions playing Spooky Pinball's Scooby-Doo machine 'just the other week' during natural conversation flow; demonstrates integrated collector perspective

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Scooby-Doo IP licensing extends across multiple game platforms including Wii and pinball machines; multiple games produced across different manufacturers and platforms

    high · Discussion of Scooby-Doo on Wii, Spooky Pinball machine, and reference to 'first frights' Scooby-Doo game; indicates active IP licensing across entertainment sectors

  • ?

    personality_signal: Matthew Lillard recognized as professional voice actor contributing to both video games and pinball machines; praised for work ethic and attention to detail

    high · Chris Craft's detailed testimony about Lillard's professionalism: 'he's really great to work with...comes in to do call-outs for games or for like the pinball stuff...just like a great guy'

  • ?

    gaming_adjacent_signal: Strong retro game collecting activity and bulk purchasing from specialty retailers; indicates healthy secondary market for older Wii titles

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.058

0:00
and we are back with take two my name is mal and with me as always craft bruce alley and this is we suck at video games big show 18 that was a little smoother hey yes yes it was and it wasn't me this time. Golf clap. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. This is a show that usually we pick out one game to review and then play it and talk about it a little bit. Usually pretty light. Nothing too crazy. So what is crazy is the amount of games we've procured this week. Crazy. Yes, very crazy. Now, not like, hey, I bought somebody's entire basement you know and got 10 000 games but there was like a real long drought in the in the wii collecting and then uh i got i procured like one or two bundles on online and uh we had one fall through which i'll talk about afterwards and then then our friends at um press start press start games in it's not what is it nina manasha manasha i always forget manasha yes we're gonna we're going to link them up to the show uh in our notes in case you ever want to check them out they are really good to deal with they had a buy to get one free on their entire inventory because well they're changing their pos systems and anyone that's been through that knows sell as much as you can before you have to enter everything they've lost their mind although i did not go crazy i wanted to but i think i was remembering all the games i had already purchased this week and I was like, ugh. So, all right, here we go. I will start with the non-Switch game, or the non, yeah, the non-Wii games. So I got Rad Racer for the NES, and I got Black Future 88, which it's a PAL version for the Switch. I didn't see that when I bought it, but it's okay. What does that mean? Hey, like Europe kind of thing. Oh. And then for the PlayStation 2, I got Jet X-O2, which is a radical wave race game, and then I got Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2, Space Race, which is a Warner Brothers slash Bugs Bunny racing game, which I cannot wait to play that. And then I got Mega Man X Collection and Mega Man Anniversary Collection, all those for the PlayStation 2. Whenever I have these kind of sales, whenever I find them, I have like a list of the top 100 NES games. And then I kind of dig around and try and find interesting games for the PS2 as well. like those are ongoing just whenever i can chisel away i get a couple nothing crazy i'm not paying $2,500 for an nes game like no no okay so now on to the main do you want to read some of these yeah i can read some of them here you go we'll do the you can do these crap your size gonna take over the first half and then i'll I'll come back for the spare. So first, we got TV Show King Party. Wow. That's a lot of words. Yes. Spider-Man Edge of Time. Okay.

high · Hosts discuss multiple bundle purchases, Press Start retailer BOGO promotion, Facebook Marketplace hunting, and acquisition of dozens of games in single episode

3:27
Face Breaker KO Party. I was hoping you were going to read this. Face Breaker. Face Breaker KO Party. Yes. Disney Think Fast, which I'm pretty excited about. And I'm excited for KO Party because boxing games. You shouldn't be. Boxing games on the Wii are fun. Yes.
3:48
But we're both going to be dying on the floor. My shoulders hurt for the next three weeks. I'm going to dial 9-1 and then whoever's left, dial the other one. Exactly. Okay. And then Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, 08, 09. To fill in with 010 and 011. All unanswered questions. That's all the Tiger Woods for the Wii, I think. I love the Tiger Woods. I didn't realize I only had one of them, though. No, you said that. I'm like, what? Right. Okay. I played that game so much. Anything else or is it my turn? It's your turn. Oh, Tiger Wood 12. There we go. The Master's Edition. Then we got I Spy Game Pack, which looks pretty interesting. I Spy Spooky Mansion and Ultimate I Spy. That looks pretty fun. Chuck E. Cheese Party Games. Yes.
4:42
I am incorrectly excited about that one And then Broken Sword Shadow of the Templars But wait we literally just got back from a porch pickup So these have not been clean processed.
5:01
I'm sorry. I couldn't think of it. So I got four games in this $10 buy. It turned out we had two of them. I was like, ugh. So we have Barbie Jet Set and Style. That's a double. So if anyone's looking for Barbie jet set and style, you let me know and I might have a copy extra. And then I got ATV Quad Kings, which looks stupid and fun. The real one that I was excited about was Hot Wheels Battle Force 5. That looks like it's going to be a fun, cool game. And then we got WePlay, which is a branded, we branded thing. So yay for that. So what are we reviewing? What game are we reviewing this week? This week we reviewed Scooby-Doo and the Spooky Swamp. And the Spooky Swamp. Wowzers. Yes. Good stuff. Now, what day was this? This was September 14th, 2010. All right. Oh, no, wait. Before we get into that, now, there was a deal that fell through this week. This will be a pretty quick one. I was looking at the Amazon or not Amazon Facebook marketplace and it was like I saw that an Atari came up and it was an old roached out two Atari game and two Atari some controllers and six games it said for 40 bucks and I was like and I looked at it and I was like maybe and I zoomed in and all the games were kind of like normal except there was one kind of really ultra rare one and I went oh my and I immediately wrote to the guy he's like up sold I was like okay someone else zoomed in apparently too it was like help me mommy or mommy come get me mommy say I want my mommy I think it was called the cartridges beat to shit and I looked online the ones that were the beat up looking cartridges were like 140 dollars I was like oh that's nuts yeah so sadly other people have a zoom function on theirs yes everyone has a zoom function I thought it was special okay now you are special i especially missed that one i was like okay now now on to the show so that was so he said september 10th no september 19th september 14th 2010 okay sooner later will you so what was the top song we're gonna set the mood what was the mood like in 2010 teenage dream by katie perry never heard of it okay top movie um i have resident evil afterlife woof okay i i've i've seen them all and to varying degrees of woof okay and then what was uh any any fun facts or anything uh i do believe that these are released on days that have no fun facts so that we can at least have fun playing the wii so there you go all right yeah so there you have it very good stuff all right now we usually like to read the back of the box to let us know you know what they think the game's about so the dev is uh torres games and it was published by warner brothers i'm like okay that's a good sign so let's say what does the back of the scooby-doo in the spooky swamp say same lovable friends same lovable friends all new mysteries find out what new adventures lurk in the spooky swamp play as any character at any time to solve the mystery more customization with cool new costumes and accessories fun new gizmos and all new ways to solve cases wow so um let's see we don't have any history with this game whatsoever i don't even remember this game do you no not at all no no i will say you know i i'm not a scooby-doo super fan but i don't think like everyone is kind of a scooby fan right my brother watched scooby-doo a lot when we were kids. Oh, and I think I did too, but there's also been numerous iterations of Scooby-Doo. Right. There's also like all different kinds. Like I remember the first ones, like the original Scooby-Doo.
9:10
Interestingly enough, you know, there's also the Scooby-Doo pinball machine from Spooky Pinball out of Benton, Wisconsin, which is, we played that just the other week. Yeah.
9:20
Do you like, did you love Scooby-Doo? Do you like Scooby-Doo? Do you have any feelings one way or the other about Scooby-Doo? I like Scooby-Doo. I wouldn't say I love Scooby-Doo. Yeah. When we were kids my brother picked something and that all he watched Gotcha Like we watched Star Wars every day The Lone Ranger every day Scooby It was just like over and over and over and over and over And then you were like, you know what? I'm going to my room and listening to like Warrant or some crap. All right. It was Striper. I was trying to be nice. There you go. All right. So, you know, right off the bat, I know we had never played it before. We put it in. And the title screen was kind of cool. It did like this witchcraft thing where they were making a brew with the logo was floating around in there.
10:09
The laugh track was odd. Yes, it was very odd. But it did fit. I will say that like this game has a very deliberate like laugh track. And at first I was like, what is that? That's weird. But then I was like, oh, that that show has that. And they left it in all the time, that weird, just an odd laugh track to cue the kids when they're supposed to giggle too, I guess.
10:34
It was a good art style. I liked it a lot. The controls were good. The controls were mostly good. Right, mostly good. And there has to be some challenge to a game, I guess.
10:47
They weren't from any exact time frame. like they didn't have like the 70s 60s or 70s version of scooby-doo they didn't have like the modern version like this was kind of like uh just a like a mid recollection or like a like a recreation of them like in like as younger teens kind of or something isn't that how you took that i think they were always that same no but they were like they this art made them look different i know what you're saying like but they just they looked way different and i don't know if that was a stylistic choice or if they just couldn't didn't want to like put in the time to like sell and animate cells or anything weird like that to make them look really close they were fine though uh one of the knocks against the game was it's it was very linear and that like it was almost like a rail shooter where you're only going this one way and that's that's kind of it like you're not there was a few times where you could go other ways to go off the trail to get some bones but like it just ended and that was it and you turn around and scooby snacks scooby snacks yes and then you and you turn around and come back but that like that like and it's not a knock against i think a lot of games just didn't have the processing power back then to like do these expansive gigantic worlds but this one felt really like okay we're going here and then somebody says okay do this and then you're just going there and there's they're not going to flash forward you there you're walking back through the swamp right to get in the machine and then okay gang and then you're going to this one place. There's no choices. There's no... So that was the only one thing I was kind of like, eh, okay, whatever.
12:28
A lot of times the mindless hordes of zombies were just kind of like, okay. You fight and you fight and you fight and you go do your thing and then you fight and you fight. But the puzzles were fun. Yes, they were. It was always neat. They did have inventive different ways for the puzzles. and I thought the character switching thing was very cool. Yes. I'm trying to think, what other game did we play that you did that? Hmm, cool. Let me think about that one. I can't remember now. But it was kind of cool because you just held in the sea and it brought up a wheel and you'd cycle through and only Velma could shimmy up and down these ropes and stuff like that. And only, what was the other one's name? Daphne. Daphne did the ropes and Velma did the, she was the smart one so she would only do these like computer puzzles when you had to do it was almost like simon it would do some like odd like versions of like dot dot this way that way this way that way up down you know i remembered it's the the lego games how you change change the characters right and then the spirit would just fly around because at first i was only running around as as a scooby and i actually hit the button and it went to shaggy because i never read any books don't worry i don't it's true i never read any i mean any uh instructional books yeah just just i just just start playing and then get angry at the game when i don't know how to do something which is obvious right oh because we uh i just reminded how mad i got at the uh the stupid we also got um mario versus donkey kong and it's already a little too complicated for me i don't I'm getting very lazy in my old age so um it was fun though what did you what were some of your observations about it was a good game um you know it's the style of the time yeah I didn realize how much of a stoner Shaggy is and I know that whole deal but I like whole generations of kids are just growing up thinking hey man Right. Whoa, man. Far out. They kind of made it more so, I felt like, in the game. Yeah. But I guess if you only have, like, your character only gets so many call-outs. That's it. That's what it's going to be. And I guess that famously that Matthew Lillard, Lollard, The guy who does them now, I guess he's really great to work with. Like a fun guy. Like when he comes in to do call-outs for games or for like the pinball stuff, he's just like a great guy. It just goes like a real extra effort to just make sure everything is done correctly and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of refreshing to hear that. You usually hear the opposite.
15:10
So let's see. What would you give this game? I think I'm going to be higher than you. So what would you say? I'm with a seven. You're a seven? Yeah. I'm going to go with an eight. Oh. Yeah, no, I was almost eight five, and I was like, let's settle down. So I'm going to give it an eight. Now, what does Metacritic say? Let's see. Metacritic has this at a 7.6. All right. And let's read some. I always like to read one of the best, most favorable user reviews, and then one of the worst ones. So let's see. I'm going to pick out. What's the highest one here? Well, I guess I'll pick up a 10. let's see uh 10 10 10 okay mr oh four good game that was on november 16th 21 10 so that's good game all right so thanks for that that was very informative and then let's see the lowest one uh four wow okay uh gullern gullum versus gullium versus i don't know whatever that was may 29th 2022 the game is mediocre at most it has some good ideas like the areas being fun but overall the plot is boring the combat is really simple to the point of obnoxious and the puzzles are cheap plus backing backtracking is annoying there's certainly certainly little to no thought in progression okay well is this really that bad really badly written no i'm badly reading sorry it's really that badly reading i'm reading it that bad i'm sorry so we got a four and then uh you know because i could read a better one uh oh here's like turpu turpu uh may december 11th of 2020 he wrote as a 10 out of 10 my second favorite game of all time is every aspect of this game is is asterix awesome i'm assuming it's a curse word recommended to everyone also check out first frights since it's similar to this game all right i figured i would i would fill in a little bit more of a better tip so you have uh some people that absolutely hate it the backtracking was annoying but i didn't like really hate it because one of the things when i start go back and you could get stuff you missed that you couldn't figure out on the way in and there's also it opens up extra like little like there was that little shortcuts that open up only after you do it. So they did put a lot of thought into this game. I will say that. This was one of our, this is one of my favorite games that we played so far. So there you have it. I would definitely say, you know, this wasn't an expensive game. I think I got it at one of those in a bundle for two or three bucks. It was not a crazy price for this game. And it is very, very fun. Very, really well done. And now I think it's time for our most exciting part of the show. It's time to pick out another game. Stay tuned, won't you?
18:09
Alright, the Hello Kitty Chopsticks have spoken and I have chosen FIFA Soccer 10. So, get ready to piss off all of our European listeners.
18:21
Because I don't know shit about soccer or FIFA 10. So, I know that's one of the most popular games in the history of games. So, let's see what we think about it you got anything else before we wrap up the show i do not all right well thanks for listening one and all and we will be back next time to talk about fifa soccer 10 oh we do have an email uh you want to give that out or we have it'll be in the show notes as well but you can reach out at we suck at video games at gmail.com w-i-i-s-u-c-k-a-t-v-i-d oh my god video games at gmail.com. I'm going to say all those letters. We good? Yeah. All right. Thanks for listening to One and All. We will see you next time.
19:04
That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over.